The Greenville times. [volume] (Greenville, Miss.) 1868-1917, 1887-02-05

does not hinder the flow of water
entirely, yet sufficiently retards il
to cause rapid deposit of its sed'
iment.
The gentleman from Iowa stated
truly that after a few years. expo
sure these piles decay and break
OF, but his statement that they
must then and periodically there
after be renewed at great cost, is
wholly incorrect. They are not
designed to serve permanently,
for when they have caused the re
quired deposit to be made their
purpose has been fully effected.
Being constrained by these artifi
cial banks to pursue a confined
and narrower channel, its forces
and energy are enhanced and the
river deepens its bed by securing
out its bottom.
To secure permanence for the
works of Improvement thus de,
scribed, the caving banks in the
neighborhood, and in a few excep.
tional places, are designed to be
fixed and protected from erosion
by what is called revetment.
This consists in covering the
banks with mattresses of willows
which are held in place by riprap
of rock.
This revetment does not cost
$19 or $40 a linear foot, as asserted
by the gentleman from Iowa; on
the contrary, the average has been
about $13 foot.
Nor do these mattresses have
to be renewed, as stated by him
because OF their decay. Many Of
the willows composing them soon
sprout and grow, and the mattress
ses become covered with a deposit
from the river which makes them
measurably indestructible.
This is the method Of doing
what is known as channel work
1t has received the sanction Of
two boards of engineers-thal
appointed in 1870 and that com
posing the Mississippi River Com
mission-and so far as / am infor
med, of all hydraulic engineers
who have bestowed thought upor
the subject.
In practice it has accomplished
all that its most ardent friends
could have wished.
1t seems to have been the fate
of all great enterprises, in all ages
to be carped at, misrepresentet
and maligned, and this nationa
and benefcent work is now pass
ing through the same ordeal.
That 1t will eventually triumph
and put its enemies to shame il
certain, unless this great nation
shall lose the energy and wisdom
which have made it the most con
spicuous and admirable on thu
face of the earth.
In prosecuting the work there
have been expended for channe
contraction, $2,500,000, and fol
bank protection 90, 100000.
This has been expended on tn,
Plum Point and Lake Providenct
reaches, and includes also worl
done for the protection of thu
Memphis and Vicksburg harbors
The statement of the gentleman
from Iowa that $10,000,000 hav,
been expended on the Mississippi
river he must know to be incor
rect.
The 100000 appropriated q
the last session remain wholly un
expended, and the total appropri
ations prior to that time wer'
| $S,OOO,O00.
Of this about s4,740,000 hav,
been expended in channel and re
vetment work, as already stated
The balance of the appropriation
has been expended in purchasin.
the plant, in repairing levees along
the reaches under treatment, il
doing work above Cairo, and il
maintaining the works during thu
long periods which, from failure
of appropriations, they were con
strained to suspend active opera
tions.
Yet that gentleman charged tina
not 10 per cent. of the appropria
tIon had been so expended.
The Plum Point and Lake Provi
dence Reaches cover about seven
ty miles of the worst channel, in
cluding fourteen chutes and TWEEN
ty.two bars, upon which at loy
stages there were often not ex
ceeding FIVE feet of water.
There is now a least depth o
thirteen feet through those reach
es, and from having been tn
worst they are now the very bes
portions of the river between 81
Louis and New Orleans.
The gentlemen from Iowa un
dertook to weaken the great en-
terprise by exaggerating the mum
Der of boats used in the work.
The nature of the work require
that nearly all of it shall be don
from boats, and for operations eS
tending over distance of l,5O
miles the plan is necessarily eA
tensiye.
There are floating pile.driver
operated by a hydraulic jet, snag
boats to draw snags from th
banks aud bed of the river, by
draulic graders to grade BY mean
of water jets caying banks to th
proper slope for revetment. maj
tress boats carrying steam loom
which weave the large mattresse
of wire and brush, floating machin
and repair shops, boats to accom-
modate the workmen with boar
and lodging, and a great numbe
of barges to carry stone, brus
and coal.
l will append to my remarks a
itemized statement of this plant.